An Exclusive Offering for 2027/2028
A Wine Cruise, Built Around Your Club
Culinary sailings through Europe's great wine regions, designed for your members and managed start to finish. Just send us a message and we'd be happy to send you our wine cruise brochure. Or click the image below.
How Wine Club Cruising Actually Works
It's simpler than it sounds.
You float the idea to your members. At one of your events or through a club email, you introduce the sailing as a new club experience. I can join your event in person or virtually to answer questions on the spot, so you're never the one fielding travel details.
Interested members raise their hands. They express interest, and you simply pass their contact information to me.
I take it from there. I book and manage every member individually, including air, pre- and post-cruise hotels, transfers, and anything else they need. Each guest is mine to look after, not yours.
Your team can sail free. For every 9 guests booked, the group earns one complimentary berth, which can go to a winery owner, a winemaker, or a sommelier. Bring enough members and you earn more than one, meaning more of your team aboard at no cost.
Your wine comes too. You ship the wine you'd like sampled on the sailing to Miami, and I get it to the ship for you. You can also request specific food pairings to show your bottles at their best.
A few more things I build in:
A negotiated group savings of 5 to 10 percent off public rates, simply for sailing as a group
A private members' cocktail party hosted on board once your group reaches 18 or more guests
$100 in onboard credit for every guest in your group
Bonus incentive for you as the winery owner towards your cruise
Recommended Sailing 1: James Beard
Normandy, Brittany & Bordeaux
For foodies and wine lovers. This is the sailing for the club that lives to eat. Windstar is the official cruise line of the James Beard Foundation, and this route runs straight through the soul of French regional cooking, from the cider orchards of Normandy to the oyster beds of Brittany, finishing in the heart of Bordeaux wine country.
Your members will pull Cancale oysters from the bay beneath Mont Saint-Michel, trace Norman cider and calvados from orchard to bottle, taste their way through Breton galettes and crêperies, and sail up the Garonne into the vineyards of the Médoc and Saint-Émilion. The food is the headline here, and the wine is woven through every stop.
Recommended Sailing 2: Wine Connoisseur
Bordeaux, Northern Spain & Portugal
For serious wine lovers. This is the sailing for the serious cellar. It's a designated Windstar wine cruise, with two onboard enrichment seminars and tastings already built into the voyage, led by Maze Row Wine Merchant and featuring artisan producers like Allegrini, Argiano, Brancaia, Ratti, and Randall Grahm's Language of Yes label.
The route is a wine lover's spine. It opens with an overnight in Bordeaux for château tastings in the Médoc and Saint-Émilion, then traces the Atlantic coast through Basque Country and northern Spain, into Portugal's port country, before ending in Lisbon. Here the wine leads, and the food rides alongside it.
The Ship: Star Explorer
Both sailings travel aboard Star Explorer, Windstar's newest yacht, launching in December 2026, and she's built for exactly this kind of trip. Carrying just 224 guests, every one of them in a suite, Star Explorer slips into rivers and small harbors that the big ships simply cannot reach. That's how your members end up sailing the Seine and the Garonne instead of staring at an industrial cruise terminal.
The essentials: 224 guests, all-suite · 135 crew, close to one crew member for every two guests · 6 decks, 432 feet
What's included in your Windstar fare: your suite accommodation, all meals across the onboard dining venues, beverages served with meals including wine and beer during dining, onboard entertainment and activities, unlimited use of the watersports platform where available (kayaks, paddleboards, snorkel gear), and select airport transfers.
The all-inclusive upgrade, $99 per guest per day: unlimited select beer, wine by the glass, and cocktails, plus Wi-Fi and gratuities
Why Windstar
I didn't pick Windstar by accident. For a wine club, the line matters as much as the route.
It's small, and that changes everything. With 224 guests, your group is a meaningful part of the ship rather than a rounding error on a 3,000-passenger vessel. Your members will recognize each other by the second night.
It goes where wine is made. Windstar's yachts sail into the rivers and small ports the big lines can't enter, so your members wake up in the middle of wine country, not at a container terminal an hour away.
The food already lives at this level. Being the official cruise line of the James Beard Foundation isn't marketing. It shows up in the menus, the sourcing, and the willingness to build experiences around food and wine, exactly what your club cares about.
It's genuinely group-friendly. The complimentary berths, the group savings, and the onboard amenities are real and built into how Windstar works with advisors like me. That's what lets me pass so much value back to you.
Let's Get This Process Started
How the process works:
We set up an intro call, a short conversation to understand your winery and your members. We choose the itinerary that fits your wine and your club. You decide whether to open the trip to your full mailing list or reserve it exclusively for club members. We set up your launch, either an in-person event or an email campaign. As members raise their hands, I take over and book each one individually. You decide who travels from the winery: owner, winemaker, or sommelier, using your earned berths. We gather everyone before departure for an in-person event to answer questions and build excitement. You set sail. Your members travel, your wine travels with them, and your winery gets the credit for an experience they'll remember for years.